Sunday, March 12, 2006

Singapore GaGa

"Watching Tan Pin Pin's Singapore GaGa is like tuning in momentarily to all the background noises of the city that we seasoned urbanites are used to ignoring or blocking out altogether in our daily lives. For 55 minutes, the frequency changes, and all those things at the edge of our aural awareness swell into focus: from street buskers and racuous children, to musicians and music-makers that perhaps the ordinary Singaporean wouldn't encounter up close.

Pin Pin calls it a documentary, but this one doesn't need a narrator; the city narrates itself. Happily, it's not a production that sets out to define Singapore, and happily it evades all the definitions that would be imposed on it by The Powers That Be. You won't find cultural tokenism here, or jingoistic tableaux --- except for, well, see it for yourself.

No, relying on her own musings and observations, Pin Pin's woven together a soundscape that's at once so familiar, yet tells you something you didn't quite expect about the city. And always softly, subtly, respectfully."